


Saving Grace

by loveleighe



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst-y, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, little bit of violence, marco isn't dead, not exactly, this may end up being long
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-28 12:48:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5091353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveleighe/pseuds/loveleighe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“If you won’t tell me what you’re doing, what’s going on - can you tell me something else? Just one last thing.” He pleads. She doesn’t walk away and he rushes to continue. “What’s his name?”</p><p>She knows who he’s talking about; the pretty boy who causes him to wake up with hot cheeks and warm shivers. He listens to her exhale slowly. After a beat, she replies. </p><p>“Jean. His name is Jean.” She steps further away. “And Marco? I’m scared of the same thing everyone else in this world is. I’m afraid of being eaten.”</p><p>And just like that, she’s gone, leaving him to test the name out on his tongue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saving Grace

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaaah I got distracted and had to write this, I'm sorry. Please forgive any errors they're all mine! There will end up being other pairings in this, I'll add tags and any triggers as I go along. In saying that:
> 
> Mentions of gore/body horror in this chapter!

“You need to eat to keep up your strength.” The voice is monotonous, bored. He can’t open his eyes enough to see who the voice belongs to but somehow it’s familiar. A hand presses against his forehead, pushes his hair backwards and feels his temperature. Hot. 

He feels hot. 

The voice hums softly and he can hear the person shifting their weight back and forth, floorboards creaking uneasily. There’s a soft whoosh of air and then breath ghosting against his face as the person bends to his level. He’s vaguely aware that he’s sitting, propped up against rough, lumpy pillows. “Please.” The voice says and now there’s a hint of concern, but only barely. “You need to eat.” 

The hand trails from his forehead to his wrist, forcing him to move. He knows that his own fingers are curled around a spoon and there’s a spot of even more heat on his lap. 

Without really thinking, he lets the person move his limbs. Absently, he thinks that perhaps he is a puppet and that if he keeps believing it, everything will stop hurting. Puppets don’t feel, after all. They don’t normally eat either though and yet here he is letting his mouth open to take in what seems to be soup.

It’s bland, flavorless. More just a broth with the barest hint of meat scraps everyone few mouthfuls. The person in front of him is silently patient as they continue to help him eat. The soup makes his stomach feel bloated, makes him want to vomit and he mutters as much, hearing how distorted his own voice is. For a moment, he doesn’t think it’s actually him talking. And then he starts to laugh at his puppet-voice, for surely that’s all it is. 

He can practically feel the frown the other person is giving him and, giddy, he hums out “are you a ventriloquist?” 

The person sighs and he almost chokes when they begin to drip water down his throat. Still, he drinks. It’s lukewarm which is nice. Cold water may have really brought all the soup up. Puppets don’t digest, he thinks, and he wonders if he’ll explode from all the liquids that are being forced inside of him. 

He’s yet to open his eyes. 

The person moves him easily until he’s laying down and there’s a sharp pin-prick of pain in his arm. After that, everything goes blissfully blank and he lets his heavy body slip into dream world.

In the dream world he doesn’t hurt. Opening his eyes isn’t agony and his muscles don’t feel as though they’ve been shredded, piecing themselves back together bit by agonizing bit. In the dream world there’s a pretty boy with a temper that burns hotter than his aching living body. There’s cool hands that touch his flesh, gentle and careful and safe. Sometimes he and the pretty boy go flying and his stomach doesn’t jump in fear. He thinks that maybe, if he fell, the pretty boy would catch him.

It’s this kind of dream world that he lives for, now. 

The only problem is, sometimes dream world isn’t all that great. Sure, there’s the pretty boy. But sometimes...sometimes there are monsters that lurk in the dark and all he can see are teeth, teeth teeth as fear makes it seem like his veins aren’t fire-hot anymore, made instead of ice that burns anyway from being so cold. 

It’s worth it though, if only because he can see the pretty boy whose name sits on his tongue, trapped there.

He falls deeper into his dream land, leaning against the shoulder of his pretty boy - and he makes sure to ignore the voice of the other person when they whisper softly against his cheek, “Please don’t let them kill me, Marco.”

OOO

“I wish you wouldn’t look at me like that.” She says.

Marco inhales slowly and lets his head cock slightly to the side, watching her still. “Look at you like what?” He asks. He keeps his voice quiet as though not to startle a small animal. Still, she shifts, like she’s been backed into the corner. He leans heavier against the wood behind himself, allowing his shoulders to slouch slightly, in an effort to put her at ease.

“I don’t understand you.” She says instead. Icy blue eyes travel warily from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. He feels underdressed, but he knows that there’s nothing...untoward in the way she examines him. Just as he knows if he looks down, half of him will be a ruined mess of raw, oozing flesh and muscle. “I killed you.” She adds, and her slim body leans forward. Elbows land on her knees and she folds her fingers together, resting her chin there. 

“I’m not dead.” Marco replies. The first fifty times he’d uttered those words, he hadn’t believed them. Now he’s starting to think that they’re true. His body aches less and less every day and even though it makes his eyes roll from dizziness, he can see that bit by agonizing bit…

The lost parts of him are coming back. 

“Anymore.”

“People can’t come back from the dead.” He offers, along with a tight smile that pulls up only half of his face. She watches the muscles in the other side struggle, as though it doesn’t bother her at all. It probably doesn’t, he thinks, then instantly wonders what else she’s seen.  


“Apparently they can.” 

“...I guess anything is possible.” He sighs through his nose, good eye flickering around the small room that he’s being held in. “Why is this taking so long?”

“It’s not exactly a science.” 

He doesn’t have anything to add to that. They watch each other in silence for a few moments before she shakes her head. Her eyes are brighter than usual and in the back of his mind, he wonders if she’s going to cry. 

She doesn’t, of course. Instead she steels herself and rises, pulling her shoulders back into posture befitting a soldier. “I have to go now. I don’t know when I’ll be back but you’ll be taken care of. You’ll be safe here.” _You’ll be safe always, now_. 

Marco says nothing as she strides to the door, the heels of her boots clicking almost deafeningly. Her hand presses flat to the door and she doesn’t bother to turn around when she says, “I really am sorry, Marco.” 

She leaves. 

There’s nothing more to do now aside from lay back further and breathe. It hurts - maybe less than yesterday, or the day before, but the pain is still there - but it’s one of the few reminders that he is, in fact, alive. 

 

OOO

She screams in her sleep sometimes. Mind you, he doesn’t see her sleeping very often. Since the first few weeks where she’d pressed food into his mouth night and day, she hardly ever comes around. Rarely, she slips in through the door late at night when all the good boys and girls are sleeping.

_“Marco darling - it’s past your bedtime. You know what they say about naughty boys who stay up past their bedtimes! Don’t you?”_

“Yes mama.”

“Well? What happens to naughty boys?” and there’s a smile on her face, one that makes him feel safe despite the threats.

Naughty boys get taken by the titans! And then eat them right up!’ he calls back to her. His mother’s hands reach out to tickle at his sides and he laughs as he rolls around the bed. Eventually she stops, and her hand strokes over his hair, pats his cheeks. He burrows into the covers that smell deeply of home and his mama pets his back, softly. Lovingly. 

“You know I’ll never let the monsters get you though.” She whispers in the dark.

He smiles, gap-toothed against her thigh as he cuddles closer. “Mama.” He says, keeping his voice hushed as sleep drags at his eyelids. She hums in response and keeps her palm rubbing along his back, soothing him further. “I’m not ascared.” He tells her. 

She laughs, more an exhale than a noise. As everything gets fuzzy she bends and presses a kiss to his temple. “I know. My brave, smart boy.” 

The memory jars him. It jars him more than the dreams he has of something ripping his leg off, putrid breath making bile crawl up from deep inside his gut. It jars him in a way that nothing does - not even looking at the exposed muscles of his slow-growing thigh. He shudders on the flimsy mattress he’s on and grinds his teeth, using the pain to ground himself. Walls above - is she even alive?

Hesitantly, as if it’s something that he shouldn’t be doing, he darts his eyes towards her. 

It’s the first time they’ve seen each other in almost two weeks. When she’s gone, the strange man with the smile comes. He doesn’t talk - in fact, he doesn’t do much of anything aside from hand Marco his food, ensure he eats it. Helps him move around to relieve himself. And smile - grin stretching almost from ear to ear. He should be disconcerting but now? He’s just a part of Marco’s life. 

“Hey.” He starts, voice cracking. He clears his throat and tries again, louder. “Hey.” 

She jerks like someone’s poured cold water on her, sitting up and reaching blindly for a weapon that isn’t there. Frantic blue eyes swivel to towards him, unseeing, and for the first time in a long time Marco is afraid. His heart leaps into his throat and he forces his voice not to tremble. “It’s okay. You’re okay it - it was just a dream. You were screaming.”

Slowly, she seems more aware. Her eyelids droop with exhaustion and he can see her jaw twitching as she grinds her teeth. She doesn’t say anything as she lays back down, stiff. 

“It’s okay.” He says again, soothing. “Do you...want to talk about it?” 

“Nothing you want to hear.” She replies, finally, and rolls so that her back is to him. 

“Do you mind if I talk?” He tries instead. He watches as she starts to turn her head back towards him before pausing, forcefully returning to staring at the wall. 

“Do whatever you want.”  
So he does. Marco tells her about the memory he’d just dragged up. He tells her about childhoods playing in ponds, of dreaming of being someone who could help others. She snorts at that, and he doesn’t know why. He asks her if wanting to help others is really a laughable cause and she replies that it’s idiotic, idealistic nonsense. He asks her why she helped him. 

“I didn’t.”

“You did.”

She sits, violently, whipping around to face him. “I didn’t help you. I killed you. I killed you and I couldn’t handle the thought of killing you. You were weak and harmless and stupid and I killed you. I didn’t help you, Marco. I did this for myself because I knew that if I didn’t, it would keep me up at night.” Her eyes are burningly bright; the hottest part of the flame, the blue centre. The bit to fear. 

Only, he isn’t exactly afraid. 

He swallows. “So what’s keeping you awake now?”

For a moment, it almost looks like she’s going to answer. 

The door creaks open. Neither of them have to look to know that it’s the man with the smile. The room sits in tense silence for several long, long moments. The smiling man watches her and Marco watch one another. 

The tableau is broken by movement. She stands, sharply, and picks up the cloak she sometimes wears around the room. “Nothing that you want to hear.” She brushes by the smiling man who at this point has stepped a few feet into the room. 

As the black cloak begins to flicker out of sight, Marco finds his voice. “Annie.” 

He doesn’t have to call her very loudly and he realizes, dimly, that it’s the first time he’s used her name since he’s woken up inside this small, strange room. 

She freezes just outside of the door but she doesn’t look at him. Tension rolls of her in waves.

“If you won’t tell me what you’re doing, what’s going on - can you tell me something else? Just one last thing.” He pleads. She doesn’t walk away and he rushes to continue. “What’s his name?”

She knows who he’s talking about; the pretty boy who causes him to wake up with hot cheeks and warm shivers. He listens to her exhale slowly. After a beat, she replies. 

“Jean. His name is Jean.” She steps further away. “And Marco? I’m scared of the same thing everyone else in this world is. I’m afraid of being eaten.”

And just like that, she’s gone, leaving him to test the name out on his tongue. 

OOO

Annie doesn’t come back again. 

The day after she leaves he’s woken once more by screams, far off in the distance. The sound haunts him. It always will.

 

OOO

He thought it would be Hanji to come into his room at night, whisk him away. For some reason, they seem like the kind of person to do that; break the rules just to see what will happen. It’s why Jean is surprised - or rather, dumbfounded - when he opens his door to reveal Levi. The shorter man watches him with a carefully blank expression.

“S-sir?” Jean stutters out, standing in the dark in his underclothes. 

Levi is, as always, impeccable looking and unruffled. “Come with me.” Is all he says, turning on his heel as if he just expects everyone to do what he says.

Jean supposes that’s an accurate thought, though. He rushes to shove boots onto his bare feet and jogs after the captain, careful to be quiet. There’s a reason that Levi has come to him under the veil of night, alone. A small trickle of fear climbs up Jean’s spine and he wonders if he’s done something wrong. If, maybe, they’ll be kicking him out of the corps for the way he’d acted earlier. 

He swallows his questions down as he trails after the floating green cloak that Levi is still wearing. 

They walk for what feels like forever until finally, they reach a door. There isn’t anything spectacular about it, either - unless you count Mike and Hanji leaning on either side of it to be spectacular. Which...Jean does, secretly. He feels his shoulders hunch up, that niggling feeling of danger spreading and causing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end.

“Relax.” Levi says, soft. 

The other two corps veterans don’t even acknowledge them, aside from Hanji moving to unlock the door. They return to their post immediately after, slouching boredly against the wall to stare into the darkness. The flame of the lantern flicks off of Mike and Hanji’s faces, giving them an eerie appearance that Jean tries to ignore as he follows Levi past them and through the door. Still, he can’t help but shiver as he crossed the threshold. And he’s pretty sure he heard Mike snicker about it too - bastard. 

Jean bites the insides of his cheeks to keep himself from demanding answers. The doorway has led to a narrow staircase that winds down deep; he follows, if only because going back isn’t an option anymore. 

This walk is shorter. When they hit the base of the stairs Jean feels his knees go weak.

There, across from the last step, suspended a few feet off the ground is Annie, in all her crystallized glory.

“I thought you two should have a little chat.” Levi says boredly. Gunmetal grey eyes flicker towards Jean. “You seemed like you had a lot to get off your chest.” There’s no...judgement. In his voice or in his expression. There’s simply the statement and a steady calmness that makes the jelly disappear from Jean’s legs.

And that’s when Jean notices it; the cuts on the backs of Levi’s hands. He pauses - doesn’t breathe in, doesn’t move. Just stares at the scrapes. Levi follows his eyes to take in what is apparently so interesting on his person. His lips quirk.

“I had a lot to get off my chest too.” He shrugs, unbothered.

Jean thinks about trust. About blind faith. About how many people are dead, and how many patches Levi has collected. 

“Thank you.” He hears himself saying, turning back towards the blond girl with the closed eyes. “Levi…”

“Don’t mention it. Ever. Especially around Erwin.” The shorter man deadpans from behind him.

Jean stops inches away from his old classmate, eyes burning. “You’re a fucking coward.” He murmurs, more to himself than anyone else. There’s no response - of course. Somehow, that enrages him more than if she’d smirked. The first punch to her shell doesn’t break his skin. The second one does. He loses track after that. Both of what he says and how many times he hits her.

And unbeknownst to all, Annie listens to every single accusation.


End file.
